river. The same
applies to the district between here and the Upper Richmond Road as far
west as the London boundary at Northumberland Terrace. Here stood until
recently prolific gardens and orchards, but now the site is covered with
streets arranged as closely as possible, and filled with a rather better
style of dwellings than those to the northward.

Passing west, we come at length to the gateway of the Ranelagh Club at
Barn Elms. From this entrance, with its large gates and porter's lodge,
the private road runs over the Beverley Brook, and, swerving to the
west, enters the park proper. This manor was given by Athelstane to the
Canons of St. Paul's, and is still held by them. The mansion of Barn
Elms was formerly in the possession of Sir Francis Walsingham, and here
in 1589 he entertained Queen Elizabeth. Pepys and Evelyn both make
mention of this place in their diaries, and it was here that the duel
was fought--January 16, 1678--between the Earl of Shrewsbury and the
Duke of Buckingham. The meetings of the Kitcat Club were held here in a
room specially built for the purpose by Jacob Tonson, the bookseller,
who lived in a house formerly known as Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, and died
there November 25, 1735. At present Ranelagh rivals Hurlingham as a
social outdoor club, and the merits of the respective grounds are a
matter of opinion.

On the Lower Common, standing out by themselves, are two old houses, Elm
Lodge and West Lodge, in big gardens sliced off the common. The houses
are fancifully painted, and half hidden behind a privet hedge and a row
of elms. The common to the south is bare of bushes, but to the north
there are still big clumps of gorse and brambles, with many straggling
trees between. Putney Cemetery is on the common, and further west that
of Barnes is seen. At the beginning of the Mill Hill Road is an old
cottage hidden behind closely-trimmed trees and a high hedge, the
residence of the cattle gate-keeper, whose duty it was in former years
to prevent the straying of animals from the parish of Barnes into that
of Putney. The gate has been removed, but the place marks the London
boundary, which follows the line of the big ditch due south across the
Lower to the Upper Richmond Road.

On the south side of the Lower Common stands a long row of staring Queen
Anne cottages, and at the east end of them the Church of All Saints, in
the Early English style, erected in 1874, with schools close by. Hidden
away behi